


we're headed straight for the keep

by pearwaldorf



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Kidnapping, Post-Trespasser, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-26 09:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6233299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearwaldorf/pseuds/pearwaldorf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dagna hopes Sera really is coming. <i>Don’t think like that</i>, she tells herself. No, she must wait until Sera arrives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're headed straight for the keep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustJasper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/gifts).



> JustJasper, I hope this resembles what you wanted and I hope you enjoy! <3
> 
> Thank you to [sabinelagrande](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande) for looking this over.

The valleys of the Emprise are cold, and the wind funnels through them like a knife; nothing like the ever-present ambient heat of Orzammar or even the forge at Skyhold. Dagna pulls her coat around her body more tightly and wishes longingly for that warmth. The walls surrounding her are mostly dull, which makes the odd glint catch her eye. It doesn’t look like any of the normal metals she’d expect to find in this region, and she’s curious to see what it might be. She strides towards the rock face, as quick as her legs can take her. (She’s learned to adjust her pace to keep up with longer-legged humans and elves. She forgets sometimes she can slow down when she’s by herself.)

“Don’t go too far, yeah?” Sera calls after her. Dagna flashes a smile back and waves, feeling fondness at her concern. The area’s been free of red Templar activity for weeks, and they’ve encountered no bandits or other mischief. It’s the only reason the Inquisitor allowed her and Sera to go out by themselves. 

“You’re watching my back, right?” Dagna responds. Sera hefts her bow, miming exaggerated vigilance, and Dagna stifles a giggle. Sera’s good backup: alert, quick to respond to any hint of danger. Dagna always feels safe with her.

The glint comes from an outcropping of dawnstone. It’s not Fade-touched like she would have suspected. It can’t be when there’s been no rift activity whatsoever around this area. She scrapes a finger over the rock and something comes off it onto her nail. Paint? Stones, what is going on? Before she can wonder more, Dagna hears rustling in the bushes, too steady and loud to be an animal. She draws her dagger, but somebody pins her arms behind her and another person puts a bag over her head. She tries to yell for Sera, but a rag is put over her nose and mouth and she doesn’t remember anything else.

She wakes up on a cold stone floor, but she’s not bound. Her head hurts, but when she pushes herself into a sitting position she doesn’t feel dizzy. That’s… a start, at least. It looks like she’s in some sort of storeroom, judging by the piles of random junk and boxes pushed to the sides and corners. It’s not dusty, so it must be either well-maintained or recently moved. Sadly there are no accessible windows, and it would be too much to hope the one door is unlocked. She starts looking through the boxes she can reach, just to see if there are components that might be useful. Nothing yet.

She hears a clank and a key turning in the lock, and sits down on the floor. A human man steps in. His face is pale and vaguely rat-like, covered in lines of red lyrium corruption. She shivers, having never seen a Red Templar up close before. If he notices, he doesn’t react.

“So you’re the Inquisitor’s dwarf.” His voice is gravelly, Fereldan, unimpressed.

“Arcanist,” She snaps, quite aware this is probably not the wisest course of action. But she didn’t spend years learning her craft to be disrespected by some Red Templar ratface who probably couldn’t tell the difference between a superb rune and some duster trinket.

“What?” He seems surprised, like he didn’t expect resistance.

“I’m the Inquisitor’s Arcanist.” She gets up, standing as straight as she can while she glares at him. He still towers over her, but she feels a little better knowing if he’s going to kill her for her insolence, she’ll die standing.

“Fine. Arcanist.” Ratface says her title like it’s being dragged out of him.

“What do you want with me?” She asks. “The Inquisition will pay whatever ransom you want, as long as I’m unharmed.”

He smirks. “Nothing quite so base, I’m afraid. We know of the work you’ve done for the Inquisition and its allies. And now you’re going to do the same for us.”

“And what if I refuse?” Her voice is steady, for which she is grateful. “Will you kill me?”

“No. You’ll just wish you were dead.” Ratface smiles, and she’s reminded of how animals bare their teeth. She thinks of the reports about Red Templar encampments she’s seen, and the cages where they grow red lyrium. He’s not wrong.

She doesn’t really see any other choice here, one that will let her hold out until Sera or the Inquisition mounts a rescue. (They have to be working on that. Sera wouldn’t leave her behind.)

She takes a deep breath. “All right. But you’d better provide a suitable workspace.”

“You start tomorrow,” Ratface says. The door closes behind him with a foreboding thud that shakes the walls. Dagna resumes her search of the storage room. Hopefully she’ll find something helpful before they come get her in the morning.

\--

_[A hastily scrawled note, found attached to the leg of one of the Inquisition’s messenger birds.]_

_~~Widdle~~ ~~Dagna~~ The Arcanist’s gone, taken. I don’t know by who. She likes to wander. I should have kept better watch on her. Help me get her back. _

_(A doodle of Sera, exaggerated lines of tears bursting forth from her eyes.)_

Charter squints at the tiny missive. “That’s positively restrained for Sera. It must be serious.” She frowns at the war table, tapping at Sera and Dagna’s last known location. “We’ve had reports of Red Templars in the area come in after they left. I recommend we send a party out to assist as soon as possible.”

“I agree. We need to show the Inquisition remains a force that cannot be intimidated.” Adaar looks around the war table at her advisors. “Who do we have available?”

Cullen leans against the table, surveying its entirety. “Bull and the Chargers are already out in the field and cannot be recalled. Dorian remains in Tevinter.”

Josephine consults her writing board. “Cassandra and Vivienne are in Val Royeaux, and are thus probably the closest. Varric is busy with duties in Kirkwall, but may have advice or resources.”

Adaar nods. “Then it’s settled. I’ll leave for Val Royeaux as soon as arrangements can be made.”

“Yes Inquisitor,” they murmur before going about their newly assigned tasks.

\--

Morning comes, quicker than Dagna would have liked. The door clanks open and she’s shown to a workshop, more adequately equipped than she hoped. It gives her fewer excuses to try and stall any activities they want her to do.

Ratface gestures to the equipment they’ve set up. “We want you to enchant weapons and armor with red lyrium. We expect something that works in the next three days.” Shit. She certainly doesn’t want to give them anything that actually works, but she has to come up with a plausible reason for why she can’t.

She gives him the best withering expression she can muster. “Do you understand how fragile red lyrium is? It’s delicate and hard to work with, and to integrate it into anything in a way that makes it not explode on contact? It takes quite a long time.” Her extrapolations about properties of the stuff are a little… off-the-cuff, but based upon first-hand knowledge supplied by the Inquisitor and Varric. She hopes that’s enough to convince Ratface.

“I don’t believe you.” Evidently not.

Dagna snorts, in what she hopes is a derisive fashion. “Do you want a dead arcanist or one that works slowly?”

Ratface scowls, but can’t find anything to refute. “If I find out you’re lying, I’ll shove crystals into your body myself.” He nods towards the equipment. “You still work today. Maybe we’ll feed you if we think you’ve made an honest effort.” The door to the workshop slams, and she can hear a key turn in a lock.

Dagna breathes as sigh of relief. She’s bought herself a few days. Now that she has access to a forge and a workshop, she’s in a much better position to craft things that will assist in her escape. She hopes Sera really is coming. _Don’t think like that_ , she tells herself. No, she must wait until Sera arrives.

\--

Sera sees the Inquisitor come up the rise, followed by Cassandra and Vivienne. She’s been camped out here since she discovered Dagna was taken. It’s the best place she’s found to observe the Red Templar keep. 

“About time you got here. Any more time scratching my arse watching guard rotations and I was going to attack it myself.” It’s true; she was going a little bonkers waiting for help, even if it was making its way at all possible speed.

“Good to see you too, Sera.” Adaar smiles and scoops her up into a hug, and Sera lets her; as if she had a choice in the matter. It’s good to see her bloody Worship though, know she’s there to help.

“How are you doing, Sera? It must be difficult knowing Dagna is held hostage.” Cassandra’s voice is concerned, and despite herself she is touched. 

“‘Not thinking about it. Be better when she’s back.” She says, in a hopefully casual manner. It’s been hard, not knowing if she’s safe, what she’s being forced to do. 

Vivienne shifts minutely, as if daring to be acknowledged. 

"Vivvy.” Sera nods. “Didn't think you'd be keen on coming out into the cold again." There's a tiny, _tiny_ crease between her eyes, gone in almost an instant, but it was _there_. Sera gets a small glow of pleasure from it, glad she can still get under Vivienne’s skin.

"So good to see you again, my dear." She says in that cultivated, pleasant tone that means _piss off _. If she’d ever say something like that. "The Inquisitor asked for my help, and I am here to provide it." She looks at Sera coolly, like she’s waiting for her to do something. "The sooner you tell us of your plan to storm the keep the more quickly I can be back in civilization."__

__"Me? Really? Piss." She was under the impression it’d be like old times, Adaar taking the lead and all._ _

__Vivienne looks at her like she's daft. "My dear, you have been monitoring everything about the situation, observing the terrain and the building. You know the guard rotations and what weapons they carry. Obviously the best qualified person to plan the attack is you."_ _

__“She’s right.” Adaar puts a hand on her shoulder, encouraging. “You also have the most incentive to make sure everything goes right, wouldn’t you say?” An image pops into her head of her Widdle in a dungeon: scared, chained up, probably being forced to do bad magic for bad people. It’s the only reason Sera can think of for anybody wanting to take her._ _

__“Guess I do, yeah.” Adaar gives her a friendly slap, and she does her best to remain upright. (She’d forgotten how much force Adaar could put in one of those, even when she was holding back.)_ _

__Sera grabs a stick, scratching out a rough map of the keep into the dirt. She puts rocks down to represent the guards. The other women crowd around as she outlines the watch schedule and where she’s seen it break down. These bastard Red Templar pissbuckets’ll be no match for a group like theirs. She’s got this, and soon she’ll get her Widdle back._ _

__\--_ _

__Dagna hears noises outside the workshop: some shouting, and then a lot of running footsteps. Something’s definitely happening, which means it’s time for her to put her plan in action. She’s pretended to work on weapons and armor, faking enough progress to keep Ratface off her back, but most of her time in the workshop has been spent crafting other things. They’re a new design that she would have liked to test more, but circumstances being what they are, she’s just going to have to trust that she knows what she’s doing. (And she does. Most of the time.)_ _

__She listens at the door and tries to figure out if the guards outside the workshop have been called away. It seems like they have, so she wedges two vials under the door and stands back. Way back, as far as she can get. She reaches into her pocket and brushes against the corresponding rune, praying to the Ancestors, Maker, and anybody else who might be listening that this works. There’s a _whoosh_ , an explosion, the thud of a door blown off its hinges; and she leans against the workshop table, relieved. _ _

__The area outside the workshop is quiet, and she creeps out cautiously, hoping she doesn’t run into a wandering guard. She has a dagger, but it’s not going to be much help against a human that could easily overpower her. She makes her way down the halls, trying her best to remember what little of the keep she’s seen. She knows the way between the workshop and the storage room that has become her home quite well by now, but she doesn’t have the first clue which turn might lead to an exit. She hears the noise of fighting coming from a distance. As much as it pains her instincts to go towards danger, it’s difficult to battle in close quarters. And open spaces mean a way out. Gripping her dagger tightly, she walks towards the noise. She really, _really_ hopes she doesn’t have to stab anyone today._ _

__

__Dagna emerges into a courtyard, on the edge of chaos. The Inquisitor does something with her staff, creating a swirling vortex of magic that sweeps the hapless troops into radius of the party. Cassandra stands at the fore, bashing them with her shield, a fierce curl on her lip. Vivienne wields her spirit blade, calmly cutting the stunned fighters down with economical grace. Sera, her lovely beautiful Sera, perches in a tree in the courtyard, picking off foes from the edges with her bow. Her eyes light on Dagna, and she stops for a moment, joy and relief mingling on her face. And then her expression turns to alarm._ _

__“Widdle, duck!” Dagna hears, and she drops, hitting the ground on her shoulder. She hears the impact of an arrow, and a scream of pain before the unmistakable thud of a body behind her. She rises, getting up in time to see the spark flee from the soldier’s eyes. Upon further examination, she realizes it’s Ratface. He must not have wanted her back serving the Inquisition, and she feels ill. _Good riddance_ , she thinks._ _

__The rest of the forces must see that their leader is dead, and morale breaks incredibly rapidly. There are only a scant handful of Templars left, and they surrender with no resistance at all. The Inquisitor and Cassandra are already at work binding their hands with rope. Vivienne writes a note, while a messenger bird stands at the ready._ _

__Sera has dropped out of the tree, wiping her forehead. Dagna runs towards her, and she finds herself scooped into the air, throwing her arms around Sera’s neck. She smells like sweat and ozone, and the scent is familiar enough to bring tears to Dagna’s eyes as she presses her face to Sera’s neck. Finally, she’s lowered to the ground. Sera drops to her knees. She puts her hand out and cradles Dagna’s cheek. She tries not to lean into it too much, and fails._ _

__“All right then?” she asks softly. Dagna nods, and Sera’s face eases, releasing tension she probably didn’t even realize she was holding. She always worries too much, even if it doesn’t seem like she would._ _

__Dagna covers Sera’s hand with hers. “I knew you’d come for me.”_ _

__“You’re my Widdle. Where you go, I’m right behind.” She says it with such certainty it might as well be a force of nature, and something shifts in her: a bone-deep realization that changes everything, like the day she realized wanted to study magic._ _

__“I know.” She says, and takes Sera’s hand in hers. The Inquisitor and Cassandra have finished securing the prisoners, and Vivienne has tossed the bird in the air. They wait expectantly, clustered together._ _

__“I think I’m ready to never see this place again. What about you?” Dagna says. Sera makes a rude noise, and she laughs. They walk towards the rest of the party, back to the camp._ _


End file.
